Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Does Obama hate White people?

Actually for some, I think this question shoots to the heart of one of the problems in our political climate.

Before in history when someone disagreed with the president it was assumed it was because of policy. No one had to wonder if it was because of race. Well most Americans didnt have to worry.

Now we are at the first point in American history where the majority race is confronted with the concept (real or imagined) that the president may not have their personal interests at heart because of race.

Deep down inside we all have parts of us that feel a certain way that is unacceptable to our conscious self. We protect our conscious self from those feeling through various defense mechanism. One of my favorite is projection

Projectiona defense mechanism that involves taking our own unacceptable qualities or feelings and ascribing them to other people. In other words. If you deep down inside feel like you hate your sister, but consciously you know it is unacceptable to hate your sister. You may begin to feel your sister hates you.

We all have prejudices that are born of our life experiences: how we were raised, our past interactions with other, and how we perceive others have been treated. Yet in many instances society tells us that our prejudices are inherently wrong-- evil. When truth of the matter its not the prejudices that are wrong, but how we condition our responses to them.

Yet these prejudices do exist in all of us, but consciously we feel that is wrong. Prejudice is a bad word right? Synonyms with racism and bigotry, right? Therefore I can understand how if that is lurking beneath the surface of our minds whenever those thoughts creep up near the conscious we have to do something before it pops up. And we do. We get rid of it, even better we give it to the thing that is causing us so much discomfort.

I would be guilty of grossly over generalizing if I stated I felt that this was the reason for all of the disagreement regarding the current administration, but I would be equally remiss if I didn't wonder how much it contributed to the intensity of the dissent.